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“Bring the sacks,” Pepper said. “We will see how much we buy today.”

Two porters rolled a stack forward to the scale. As they worked, a call floated down the yard: “Your Grace—this way, if you please.”

Pepper’s head turned without permission. At the far side of the wharf, a tall man in a navy coat walked beside another, plainer fellow with a ledger. The crowd made space around them as if it had been trained to. She saw only the set of his shoulders and the shape of his hat, the way he paused to look at a load being unloaded.

Another nobleman come to admire his regulations, she thought. Very well. Let him admire. We’ll see if anyone can eat a tidy column of figures.

“Pepper,” Henry said quietly. “They’re on.”

She turned back as the first sack thumped onto the iron plate. The needle jerked, wavered, settled lower than it should.

“Short,” she said at once.

The clerk scowled. “It’s within—”

“Short,” she repeated. “That one can go to Lord Darley’s guests. I’ll not pay the same coin for less flour because we lack chandeliers.”

Someone behind them let out a low whistle. Another man muttered, “Good for her.”

Color climbed up the clerk’s neck. “We’ll make it up in the next,” he said stiffly. “But that’s all I can do. The Board doesn’t like trouble.”

“The Board already has trouble,” Pepper said. “It just hasn’t been written neatly on its papers yet.”

The next sack hit the scale; this time the needle climbed to its proper mark. She nodded once. They watched each one after that.

As often as she could, she slipped off a glove and rubbed flour between her fingers: checking for grit, for damp, for that smooth, promising softness that meant pastry would behave. It was not the best lot on the wharf; she could see that one being loaded onto a cart marked for one of Darley’s houses. But it was sound enough to work with.

“Take it,” Mr. Kemp murmured at her shoulder. “We’ve ovens waiting, miss.”

She nodded. Pride would not keep the kitchen running if the barrels stood empty.

When the last sack had been weighed and noted, she opened her reticule, smoothed the notes once, and watched the clerk count them. He wrote M. BEAUMONT in his book in careful, annoyed capitals.

“Cart for Harley Street!” someone shouted. Mr. Kemp moved to help the porters. Henry stayed at Pepper’s side, still glaring at the scale as if it might decide to cheat them again.

“We’ll manage,” she told him. “We always do. But tonight the Flour Duke will learn what his beautiful rule looks like at a counter that does not belong to a lord.”

Henry’s mouth twitched. “You’ll have His Grace afraid to open his post, mademoiselle.”

“If His Grace is afraid of paper and ink, he should not play with flour,” Pepper said. She stepped away from the scale, testing the cobbles the way she always did after standing still too long. This time when Henry offered his arm, she took it without protest for the length of the worst patch of cobbles.

As they turned toward the street, she glanced back once more. The man in the navy coat was standing by another scale now, hands clasped behind him, watching a sack being weighed as closely as she had. The man beside him—steward or secretary—was pointing out something on a folded sheet.

For half a second, Pepper thought of the gentleman in the bakery. The one who had listened when she told him how to eat mille-feuille. The one who had said, you’re right, as if he meant it.

This one had more flour on his boots.

“Maybe he’s not all bad,” Henry said under his breath, following her gaze. “For one of them.”

“Or he stepped in the same mess he made,” Pepper replied. “Come. Papa needs his sacks, not my opinions.”

They walked away, cart wheels bumping over the stones. Pepper let the yard fall behind her and let the letter form itself in her head as they went: lines about chandeliers and street lamps, about tables laid in St. James’s and tables laid in Bishopsgate.

If those born to titles govern only for tables beneath chandeliers, they mistake privilege for duty…

By the time they turned toward Harley Street, her ankle ached, her hands itched for dough, and the Flour Duke had another letter coming.

Chapter 8